{"id":151549,"date":"2013-01-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12013x101x1curried-kabocha-squash-soup-no-time-bread-for-rain-for-her-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:13:46","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:13:46","slug":"curried-kabocha-squash-soup-no-time-bread-for-rain-for-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2013\/01\/curried-kabocha-squash-soup-no-time-bread-for-rain-for-her.html","title":{"rendered":"Curried Kabocha Squash Soup & \u201cNo Time\u201d Bread, for Rain & for Her"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Curried<\/a> \""No<\/a> \"Curried<\/a><\/div>\n
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The rain finally stopped, just when it had seemed like it had been raining my whole life. The days have been monochromatic and sodden, and then, all of the sudden just electric blue and unseasonably warm. People walk in droves on the bridge. It\u2019s beautiful out. You can hardly remember the rain if you try. I mean this weekend. But really I mean a year and a half ago.<\/div>\n

Life can seem all right in a gray soft box, in perpetual rain. Though you\u2019ll forever long for a real soft box, a shoe box for a house mouse lined in quilting squares and wood shavings with little holes poked in the top for breathing, for particulate shafts of light. A warm place for resting and being fed. I still long for such a box sometimes because for me being an adult can feel like running. Like something with fangs from a Grimm brother\u2019s yarn is forever breathing down my neck just a few paces behind.<\/p>\n

Maybe I only feel that way because of what I came from. There are things about me, things I don\u2019t wear on my sleeve. But I don\u2019t try to hide them either. And I\u2019m going to talk about it now. Maybe for me, maybe for other people. I don\u2019t know. Not but a year and a half ago I was sitting in the common room in a treatment facility feebly, frantically attempting to \u201ccook\u201d with a single serving packet of cheerios, an orange, a mini carton of milk, and some cheese & peanut butter crackers. I remember thinking \u201ccreamy, salty, sweet, acid\u201d. I did understand something about food, even then. Even addled as I was, just a few days in. I remember thinking it was okay, whatever it was I made. I think I thought it was soup.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In short, I\u2019m an addict in recovery. Tonight, I just learned that my roommate from treatment passed away on Monday. She and I, our lives were parallel lines. Same elementary school, same high school, same drug of choice. She was beautiful, perfect really. Impossibly blond. Three years younger than me. She ran. Her\u00a0face-wash\u00a0smelled like grapefruits. Everyone loved her. If you\u2019d asked anyone back then which of us would be dead come a year and a half\u2019s time, most people would have put their money on me. I would have put my money on me. Yet here I stand, so very happy with more amazing and exciting things happening in my life than I would have ever allowed myself to imagine possible. I will never pretend that I\u2019m the reason for any of these things. Yes, I make choices. I work hard and make choices for life daily. But I don\u2019t know why I got well. To be honest, I didn\u2019t even want to. I ended up in\u00a0treatment\u00a0because I had no choice. I was railroaded into it. No one would have ever thought I would stay clean in a million years. There wasn\u2019t a lot of hope still being held out for me, least of all by myself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m forever grateful to have been given a second chance, but I\u2019ll never understand it. First of all, it wasn\u2019t a second chance. A fiftieth? Who\u2019s counting. But I do know without any doubt that the life I have today is nothing short of a miracle. I don\u2019t use language like that lightly. And her passing only amplifies that fact. I will never understand why she and countless others cannot and do not make it out alive. I assure you all, it wasn\u2019t for her lack of trying. We sit in these trenches as our fellows fall around us, and when the dust settles and we\u2019re left standing, we can never know why them and not us. And God save us if we ever think it\u2019s because we\u2019re somehow better than those that didn\u2019t make it out alive. Because I know I\u2019m not. Survivor\u2019s guilt is real, and I wrestle with it often, tonight very much so. \u00a0I don\u2019t know why her story was written like that. But I\u2019m not the author of that book and there is nothing I can do to change it.<\/p>\n

A lot of people like to talk about how living well is the best revenge. Well, I\u2019m not interested in revenge. I\u2019m interested in gratitude and amends. And sometimes the best amends a person such as myself can make to the countless people hurt over the years, myself included, is to live well now. I can\u2019t change the way I lived for those fifteen years in the rain, but I can live well to the best of my ability now, each moment, one day at a time. I can be honest. I can suffer when it hurts instead of running from the pain. It\u2019s always in our attempts to escape suffering that we suffer the most, I have found. So to show my gratitude for a chance at life and to make amends for the years I wrought destruction, all I know to do is live well.<\/p>\n

Living well is no grand gesture. It is waking up. Trying to be reasonable and kind. It is making a phone call, a loaf of bread, a visit, a bowl of soup. It\u2019s going easy on yourself so you can go easy on everyone else. It\u2019s having faith because really we have no other option in this life. There is little we can control, and so we must let go and live with faith that somehow, come what may, we\u2019ll make it.<\/p>\n

The vertigo I felt when I heard was terrifying. I was standing in my kitchen, no I was sitting at the counter. My father was washing dishes as my mother wiped down my cooktop. My brother & sister-in-law had just left. I was cooking for them, for my family, getting their opinion on some recipes I\u2019ve been working on. Patrick was standing behind me. My mother looked up and said \u201cI don\u2019t know if I should tell you this.\u201d And then she told me that my sister-in-law had read in the obituaries that my roommate had passed away on Monday. I broke down instantly, burying my face in Patrick\u2019s coat. My father muttered about why did she tell me. I kept trying to say it was ok, that I wanted to know. And I did. It\u2019s easy to forget where you came from, forget the gravity, and how cold and wet and dark it is out there. How the end is always the same. And to forget what a gift life is, especially for me. Sitting there, hearing that news, all I could imagine was a parallel universe where our lines were switched, imagined her standing there, clean & sober with her love and her family around her in a warm kitchen. I imagined her mother furrowing her brow and telling her \u201cI don\u2019t know if I should tell you this, but Beth Kirby died on Monday.\u201d All I know, all I can say, is this: There but for the grace of God, go I.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t give her that kitchen in a parallel universe. And I\u2019m so sorry for that. But what I can do is never once take what I have for granted. And I can help anyone who finds themselves where both she and I did. That is all I can do. Tell people you love them, listen if someone needs to talk. I know this has all been clich\u00e9, earnest things tend to be that way, but do. And don\u2019t judge a book by it\u2019s cover. Some people need a lot more help than they look like they need, and some people are a lot stronger than they look. You just never know about people. Don\u2019t forget that.<\/p>\n

I apologize for the heart pouring. My life at the moment is filled with wonderful opportunities, rain, stress, love, and this painful reminder of what could have become of me and what does become of so many amazing men and women. I am so grateful to be alive, I have no words. The countless mornings I shouldn\u2019t have woken up haunt me. Addiction is an awful disease, and each person that makes it out alive is something to be in awe of. Not of that person, but of the inscrutable miracle that is a clean addict. And that\u2019s any addict, be it sex, gambling, booze, drugs, you name it. We\u2019re complex creatures and a fascinating, terrifying array of things can bedevil us. I know countless people suffer from this or have loved ones who do, and all I want to say is that addicts can and do recover. Never give up.<\/p>\n

\""No<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Curried<\/a><\/div>\n

So here is soup and bread, comfort. For the rain. For you. For your family. For her. It\u2019s nothing fancy or special, and to be honest, I didn\u2019t really write down the soup exactly, so make it to suit what you have and your tastes. I was just becoming a bit depressed at all the rain this past week so I made it. The bread is easy, it literally took me one hour start to finish. I\u2019d give it an hour and a half if you don\u2019t run around like a mad woman. I don\u2019t think it could be easier to put fresh bread on the table than this. So if you\u2019re like me and soup and bread are part of your peace and joy and living well, then I hope you enjoy it. I might be temporarily a little less present on this space due to a heavy work schedule, but just know, I\u2019m still very well & happy indeed. & shall always return.<\/p>\n

\"Curried<\/a>\"Curried<\/a><\/div>\n
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